WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the “ambitious” goals of the new network, saying it “could play an important role in health security”.
“As was clearly shown to us during the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is stronger when it stands together to fight shared health threats,” he said.
The IPSN, announced a day before the start of the annual meeting of WHO member states in Geneva, will have a secretariat within the WHO’s hub for epidemiology and pandemic intelligence.
It is the latest of several initiatives launched since COVID, aimed at enhancing the world’s ability to prevent and respond more effectively to pandemic threats.
The network will bring together experts in genomics and data analytics, drawn from across governments, academia, the private sector and elsewhere.
“All have a common goal: to detect and respond to disease threats before they become epidemics and pandemics, and to optimize routine disease surveillance,” the agency said.